and right now, you are looking live at the 57th street camera on the crane 1,000 feet above the ground. it's called crane cam. we'll now turn crane cam over to rach rachel maddow as "the rachel maddow show" starts now. >> we'll keep good custody to the crane cam. thanks for staying with us for the next hour. only eight days from now, a week from tomorrow, vote iing will bn nationwide in the presidential election. and on a normal night, the story of that election being this close to upon us, that would drive our coverage and dominate this news hour. but tonight is not a normal night. right outside this building in the biggest city in the country, there's a massive storm that's just made landfall and all day long has been imposing its will

on the atlantic coast from the carolinas all the way up to new england. it has toppled cranes on skyscrapers. this is that crane falling today. yeah, it has toppled cranes on skyscrapers, it has flooded the eastern sea board. it has messed up the presidential election. but this giant storm called sandy is not over yet. the storm making landfall just outside atlantic city, new jersey, at 8:00 p.m. eastern time tonight. forecasters calling sandy a post pos post-tropical cyclone which might sound better, but it isn't better. all it means is the storm has lost the characteristics of a tropical cyclone but still has hurricane-force winds. we want to go near where sandy made landfall. thank you for joining us. what can you tell us about the

scene at the site of the landfall? >> reporter: things are a little calmer now than a couple hours ago as sandy came ashore just a few miles south of where we are. the winds have kicked up again, but the rain has stopped. the tide, which the high tide came in at 8:00 p.m. and almost breached these dunes over here, the tide has gone back out. but it's just an eerie scene looking -- >> that's chris live on the scene at atlantic city, which is near where the storm made landfall. we lost the shot. that happens a lot in circumstances like this. and we'll try to get wcau back tonight if we can. do we have him back? chris, i think we lost you for a second, but you were explaining about the eeriness of the calm where you are right now. telling us what you're looking at down that road behind you. >> reporter: yeah the boardwalk, everyone knows the boardwalk, it took a et beating in this storm.

earlier today a 50-foot section on the north end collapsed after some heavy wind and rain at the beginning of the storm. but it's held up very well after that. mandatory evacuation has been in place for atlantic city since sunday. most people heeded that warning. however, some did not. there's been a bit of a political pushback going on this evening. governor chris christie earlier this afternoon called out atlantic city mayor admonishing him for keeping shelters on this barrier island instead of bussing people off the island as they did last year during irene. and that's why we have a situation. let's walk over here and show you what the rest o of atlantic city is dealing with. this is an access ramp that takes you up to the boardwalk. so these are the streets of atlantic city down here. this is what it looks like. several feet of water covering the street. and here's where things became a

problem. you have 400 people on the other side of the city who decided to ride out the storm and stay in their homes and as we talked earlier today, flood water was coming into those homes and there was no way for local emergency crews to get to them. so they had to mobilize national guard units to get those people out of their homes. things got so dangerous they had to pull the personnel back. so there were a couple hundred people still in their homes on the bay side of the city. the governor said it's a situation they will have to monitor and first thing in the morning at first light respond to and try to get those people out. not far from here just a couple blocks, one of the city's last resort shelters a guard unit went in there and pulled those people out and took them to atlantic city high school. so the shelters that were kept

if place drawing criticism. chris christie's statement was there shouldn't have been shelters open here on the island. the winds are still coming ashore here. and we really won't know what kind of damage has taken place inside the city proper. i'm chris kato reporting for wcau. >> what he was explaining was cutting out of some of the time because we have a live shot in the middle of the storm about the controversy over those shelters. the the contrast is between the wishes of the local mayor and the wishes of the governor. governor chris christie saying there should not have been any sheltering in place on site in atlantic city that everybody should have been evacuated. local officials made some local sites available for people to stay in, but some of those

places had to be responded to by first responders today. some of those people had to be rescued. but the important thing in what chris was saying, they believe there are several hundred people sheltering in their homes even in the face of rising flood waters. so that's something that local officials and local law enforcement is keeping a close eye on and those people are in per ill. that's where near the storm came ashore. it doesn't mean the flood waters will stop rising or the threat is over. sandy is claiming the first three casualties that we know of tonight in the united states. the new york city affiliate wnbc is reporting that a 30-year-old man was found dead trapped by a fallen tree. another person has died after a tree fell on them in connecticut. and the associated press is reporting that there was another storm-related fatality, a traffic accident in maryland. to the east of the eye of the storm, authorities having

warning that new york city and long island could get the worst of the storm surge. what they e predicted is an 11-foot wall of sea water flooding into lower manhattan. at this hour, winds are gusting at 80 miles per hour. earlier this afternoon at 2:30 p.m., this is what high winds did to a construction crane in manhattan. the crane just collapsing in the wind. forecasters saying the wind at the top of the building at the time of the collapse may have been close to 95 miles per hour. that crane in this shot you're seeing where it's nighttime, this is a live shot of the crane still dangling precarously over manhattan after it collapsed this afternoon in those high winds. in addition to the wind, there's the water even before sandy came ashore. the storm was causing havoc up and down the east coast. the coast guard today rescued 14 crew members of a replica 18th

century sailing ship, a tall ship that lost power in the middle of the night during its voyage from connecticut to florida. first 14 crew members had to abandon ship and when the coast guard arrived, the stranded crew members had to shump out of their life raft and into the waters of the atlantic. so they could be grabbed and rescued by rescue swimmers. later one missing crew member was pulled from the water unresponsive and was flown to the hospital tonight. the coast guard is still searching for one remaining crew member from that ship who is still missing. the ship is this the hms bounty. this is a photo taken from this summer. that ship now sits at the bottom of the ocean tonight. it sunk in the storm. on a coastline in north carolina, there's a lot less of the avalon pier than there used to be. same with the fishing pier in

ocean city, maryland. and this is the most recent footage of what it looks like in battery park city in lower manhattan tonight. high tide at the battery of new york harbor 8:53 p.m. and today is a full moon, which makes for higher tides in even the best of weather. what a surge of salt water could do to tunnels and underground electrical lines prompted authorities to shut down the subway system starting at 7:00 p.m. last night. they moved trains to higher ground and barricaded tunnels and enstranss with sandbags. the new york stocks exchange closed. it will look just as empty tomorrow when they keep it closed for a second day. in washington, d.c., federal office buildings were closed today and that could complicate friday's scheduled release of the october jobs report, which

would have been the final look at employment numbers before the presidential election. officials at the labor department are acknowledging there could be a delay, but they are still hopeful to release the report on friday as planned. another element in the storm system is snow. today in west virginia, one reason why everybody has been calling this a super storm, a monster storm, even a frankenstorm is because of hurricane sandy not just standing alone but merging with a cold front from the west. they are describing it as an arctic blast from the north. this is three separate elements coming together to form conditions like this in west virginia. this is not your normal hurricane. the state of west virginia is buried under two feet of snow in some areas and there's big concern of the widespread power outages because of that heavy snow, especially in places where the tree canopy was still full. trees hadn't lost the leaves. losing electricity is a big concern everywhere. trucks steamed north and east by

the hundreds with crews and equipment ready to help restore power when the time comes. the new york governor warning that power outages at this point are to be expected. not to be wondered about, they are to be expected. you should be surprised if you're in the field of the storm and your power does not go out. he's saying the outages should be expected and should not be a cause for panic. >> it's made a dangerous situation on the bridges and the metropolitan area, we're going to be closing a number of bridges, there may be some brief intervals in electric service also, i want you to know. that may very well happen. don't be alarmed if it does. >> part of the choreography of a natural disaster in progress. a crisis like this one is seeing public officials like governor cuomo and the governor of new jersey and the mayor of new york city michael bloomberg holding regular news conferences to update residents on what to

expect. it's useful information and sometimes reassuring. if you're not too freaked out, it can also be entertaining. but the thing it never is is partisan. this is a nonpartisan time for our elected officials. this is the part of their job that's about cooperation and taking charge of public safety and informing people about what they need to be informed about. because of that, what can seem weird on a day like today, even out of the range of the storm, what can seem weird is politicking. even when a storm hits eight days before a very important national general election, especially when that storm takes aim for the most densely populated part of this country. president obama cancelled his event in florida. he had flown down to florida for the event before canceling both today's event and tomorrow's full schedule in wisconsin before flying back to d.c. this morning. back in the white house, the president was briefed by security officials.

he also spoke to cameras himself. president clinton held president obama's campaign event in orlando without him. as well as a second event in ohio with vice president biden. the republican challenger mitt romney cancelled one of three campaign events on his schedule today. he did still address crowds in ohio and davenport, iowa. he held a town hall with voters in ohio by teleconference. but now romney's slate of events for tomorrow has been cleared. mr. romney's running mate paul ryan held one event in florida before cutting the day short and heading to his home in wisconsin. in terms of hurricane sandy's direct effect on next week's election, chuck todd reports tonight that the fema director craig foou gait has told states if they incur extra costs because of the storm, if they have to move polling places or bring in generators for power, should sandy cause elections officials any expensive changes, states and cities will be

reimbursed for those costs by the federal government. good old disaster relief, even if one doesn't believe in that sort of thing. this is not a time for ideology. let's bring in michelle franzen in battery park in lower manhattan. everybody has been keeping an eye on the storm surge and wondering how high the water is going to rise. and what threat it's going to impose. what can you tell us about the conditions and how they are changing now? >> reporter: they have certainly deteriorat deteriorat deteriorated. we have a photo to show you. there's some water that's been reported gushing into the brooklyn battery tunnel. that's not a good sign of all this water pouring into lower manhattan. we have a picture of that to show you. obviously, it's a dangerous situation for emergency workers too. trying to assess the damage or what's going on exactly. and then back here at battery,

we've also reached a new record. 11.87-foot record. the last time that happened was in 1821. let me show you back here. this is certainly not -- this water has been coming over here in battery park. these are waves that are just coming in. this is grass right here. you have the whole walkway and all the lights have been cut down here to the battery area and other areas are still showing they have power whether that's generator power or whether the utility company is selectively taking downpour, we don't know. but that's part of their plan. they are hoping that they will be able to shut down parts of the grid in order to make it more easily to restore those areas after sandy comes through. of course, we're still continuing to get these big gusts. there's also some localized

street flooding also in the lower manhattan area. so a lot of areas here that are still of great concern. we're just going to have to wait to see what the next few hours bring. we're past the high tide point, but as you well know, rachel, we're in a big unknown right now. >> just briefly in terms of what we have seen already, we have seen the flooding in the tunnel. you described there's some minor street flooding at least further south of where you are. do we know anything about the extent of the street flooding or how much is expected given how high the surge came up? >> reporter: well, they were talking initially about the surge between 6 and 12 feet. so it's just a matter of just how long the water is going to continue to inundate this lower man h manhattan area and whether it's going to compromise the subway systems or not. it's a big system down here. a lot of train stops and we're

just waiting word to see what those systems look like, the subway systems tonight. but we're still just trying to assess the water as it comes over here. it's just not backing down at all yet. it's still rising here in battery park city. >> michelle franzen, thank you. and good luck and stay safe down there. we appreciate it. >> we have much more to come on the storm and on the campaign. stay with us.

stay tuned for more coverage of hurricane sandy as it continues to pound the new york city sea board. coreybooker will join us just ahead.

i got to tell you. this is something really strong. it's definitely picking up right now. >> wnbc reporter brian thompson earlier this evening in new jersey. what was hurricane sandy is now called something else. it's dumping rain and producing dangerous sustained high winds all over the the eastern sea board. the number of people without power is estimated to already be in the millions and the peak of the storm's impact may be yet to come. let's bring in msnbc meteorologist dillon drier. what can you tell us about the change for the way the storm is described and what else we should expect?

>> i wish there was a word more ominous than post-tropical cyclone. it's not like it weakened to a tropical storm and then a tropical depression. it's a powerful storm. we have wind gusts near 80 miles per hour. so it really took on a whole different form. it lost its tropical characteristics. the development of the storm with the warm center now it is transformed and merged with the cold front to the west. it's taking on more of a nor'easter-typeset up. that's why there's no real word for it. the title doesn't matter. this is still a very strong storm. you can see the rain is just racing inland as the eye of the storm crossed over southern new jersey at about 8:00 today officially. although things did start to calm in atlantic city. it's north of the storm we're seeing our strongest impacts. this area of low pressure now

that we'll call it will actually slow down. it's going to slow to the point where it's going to rain and rain across portions of pennsylvania and new york state. it's eventually going to cause inland flooding where several inches of rain is likely. look at baltimore. predicting more than 10.5 inches of rainfall. we have a coastal concern, but eventually yooer going to have an inland concern because of the flooding. winds are still gusting up to 68 miles per hour in new york city. trenton, new jersey, inland still gusting near 60 miles per hour. we had reports of an 82 miles per hour wind gust in islip. so the winds on the north side of this storm were certainly strongest. but elsewhere, we're still getting gusts of near 50 to 60 miles per hour. you see the orange blob there? that's stretching from northern new england still all the way down into north carolina. that's where winds will still e be at 39 miles per hour and higher. that's through tuesday afternoon. that's through wednesday

morning. then eventually the winds will start to ease. but they will still be around 20 or 30 miles per hour as the storm continues to move up to the north and east. we're talking about the storm surge. this is still going to be a concern. look at the high tide time for southern portions of long island and areas across northern long island into massachusetts. not until 9:30 to 11:00 tonight and even beyond midnight for the massachusetts area. so we still have the potential in that little shade of purple there for a 6-11 foot storm surge. and even as we go into tomorrow morning, we have another high tide sickle at 8:00 in the morning. we're going to see the ebb and flow of the high and low tide create some flooding concerns tomorrow morning into tuesday. then we showed pictures of the snow. we have picked up more than 10 inches of snow already in the mountainous regions of west virginia and it looks like those

regions will end up with more than a foot of snow. that's why it really is a hybrid storm here that's taken on at first hurricane characteristics. now transforming and i wish there was a better name for it. post tropical cyclone doesn't sound threatening. but we'll be talking about this for several days because of the torrential rains and the power outages and the power crews to get to those power outages will be an issue. tomorrow's not going to be that great. wednesday is better, but still not great. it's going to take awhile for the cleanup to happen. >> in terms of the snow area, do we expect that the area affected by that snowfall is expected to get much larger? or do you expect the snow event to be confined? >> it's more of an elevation event. it does look like most of the accumulating snow or the significant accumulating snow has been in the highest elevations.

the mountainous regions are the areas dealing with snowfall. >> dylan drier, you're very busy. thank you for spending some of your time with us. we will continue to monitor the weather on the eastern sea board tonight, which is happening just before the finish line of a presidential campaign marathon. plenty of news about that. please stay with us.

the most important message i have right now is please listen to what your state and local officials are saying. when they tell you to evacuate, you need to evacuate. do not delay. don't pause, don't question the instructions being given because this is a serious storm and it could potentially have fatal consequences if people haven't acted quickly. for folk who is are not following instructions, if you are not evacuating when you have been asked to evacuate, you're putting first responders at danger. we're going to have search and rescue teams in and around multiple states all at the same time. although we have coast guard and the department of defense all positioned, if the public is not following instructions, that makes it more dangerous for people and it means that we could have fatalities that could have been avoided. >> as the winds start building

this afternoon, it gets more and more dangerous to go outside and so you sort of caught between a rock and hard place. you should have left but it's getting to be too late to leave. if you really experience an emergency, 911. we will send our first responders in, although we'd love very much not to have to put their lives at risk and you can control that by getting out now. >> i'm very, very concerned and alarmed by those that are not following the mandatory evacuation instructions. they are putting themselves in harm's way and they are certainly putting first responders in harm's way. i think what you just witnessed in suffolk county with people refusing to leave fire island and having to go back and rescue them at this point, fortunately only equipment was lost, but that easily could have been a first responder injured or harmed and that would have been needless because we have the warnings that need to be followed. now is the time.

>> i read in the newspaper this morning saying i have never run away. he's never run away from these. he's not going to run away now. you mind wind up under it, not running away from it. this is not a time to be a show-off. this is not a time to be stupid. this is a time to try to save yourself and your family. for anyone who still has electricity on the barrier islands and can hear this or see this, if you can get off the island safely, i would suggest you would because tonight is going to be worse in the barrier islands than it was last night or during the day today. lastly for those folks, you're putting people in harm's way as well. we have rescues ongoing on the barrier islands. this is putting first responders in significant, significant danger. it's not fair to their families for you to be putting them in that danger because you decided you wanted to be hard headed. >> there are times in our

civilian lives when we are called on to do things for our country, for our fellow americans, for someone other than ourselves. we're asked to do something that we don't want to do, but it's the right thing to do. take one for the team. except your responsibility not just for yourself, but as a member of a group of people who are mutually responsible to each other for something we all belong to. we heard those kinds of calls for civic responsibility from leaders in the path of the storm today all day long. you might want to stay where you are even in the face of an evacuation order, but if you do that, you will be hurting your country, your city, your state, your fellow americans. the leaders of both parties or no parties are making an appeal to self-sacrifice in the name of patriotism and responsibility. for the last couple weeks, people have been sending photos of what it looks like when they have gone to early vote. as you can see, it's lots of long lines everywhere.

which is aggravating that it's still this hard to vote in this country. particularly in the swing states, particularly in densely-populated areas. we should have more days to early vote. we should have more voting machines, more polling places open. it's so aggravating it has to be this hard, but it's also proversely sort of inspiring that it's this hard. even with how hard, people are willing to do it. a voter named andrew sent his photos from his location in baltimore. he said there were more than 500 people in line when he was there to vote this weekend. he said it was more fun than a drag to be there because he said every time the town clerk would shout out that there was a first time voter, everybody in the whole line of voters would applaud for them. everybody encouraging each other to stick it out and stay there. look at where they were. this voting site is a public safety training facility. it gets police cadets.

as hundreds and hundreds of voters are lining up to wait, they have to pass in that hallway under these banners set up for maryland police cadets. the first one says "integrity." they get a little further down the line and the next says "courage." the last banner they pass under in the voting line, 500 people before they go to vote is a banner that says "honor." and then everybody cheers for the first time voters. we are used to calls to civic responsibility at this point on the american calendar. when we get asked by candidates, when we ask each other to go vote, we're asking each other to do something that's inconvenient and sometimes time consuming and difficult and something that has individual personal pay off. but it's something that your country needs you to do. your country, your city, your state needs you to do this thing. that's true about voting. it's as true now as it is any year. maybe r more so as places make it even harder.

and it could become more of a challenge in the states that will be coping with the storm. but in this storm, we're also being reminded of other kinds of civic responsibility that we're being called on to exhibit in difficult times. do what's right not just for you alone, but for all of us. we need to pull together. you need to think of yourself as larger than just yourself. it's totally apolitical and it's the core of why we bother with politics in the first place. this is one of those times when government really matters. when we remember that elections are about picking a government. this is one of those times when leaders have to show that they are leaders. and they have to call on the best from all of us. one of those leaders who is right in the middle of this storm response and had this storm personally joins us next.

the president called me at 2:15 this afternoon. just the two of us on the phone. we had a good conversation. the the president wanted to know if we had everything we need ed to be able to respond to the storm from a federal perspective. i told him we did. he b wanted to check on the level of cooperation from fema, i said it was excellent because it is. he said if at any point over the next 48 hours i was not getting something from the federal government, i should call him directly at the white house and he was going to be there. and that i should just not worry about deal iing with anybody el.

i appreciate that call from the president. it was very pro-active and i appreciate that type of leadership. >> governor chris christie of new jersey today in one of his several press conferences on the storm response in his state. the governor is usually a caustic partisan critic of president obama, but this is not one of those days. one of the ways to watch the realtime storm response in new jersey's largest city today was to follow the amazing twitter feed of that city's mayor corey booker. this person tweets to mayor booker, transformer just went kaboom. the mayor tweets back. we'll alert the utility company. i'm five minutes from you and will do a drive by. nine minutes later, the mayor says, gratitude at river view with team helping get folks to shelter. thanks for the heads up. then somebody tweets to the mayor. mr. mayor, underpass still has many homeless underneath. . three minutes later, the mayor tweets back, i'll head down now

to take a look with emergency personnel. then by 5:46, less than an hour later, thank you, just left. we were able to convince and transport 3 homeless brothers and sisters to shelter. there's a lot on the plate of a big city mayor on any day, but there's a lot to be done to respond to a storm of this magnitude too. sometimes that gets done personally by the mayor himself. joining us is cory booker. thank you for taking the time to talk to us. >> thank you, rachel, for covering the story and showing this goes beyond partisan politics and frankly celebrating the spirit i have seen during every crisis in our city which is americans pulling together and being there for each other. it was amazing to me you just talked about it over the twitter feed. when i got there, i saw residents pulling together in ways nothing short of inspiring.

we say trooied to convince an elderly woman to leave, but she refused to go. then her neighbor looked at the woman, she said i'm not leaving you here in this doorway alone. she elect ed to stay to watch over her with her neighbor. just incredible stories. cab companies giving people free rides to shelter. so many things today have inspired me and made me proud to be a part of this community and this country. >> how hard has newark been hit and what are your biggest challenges as the storm continues raging through the night? >> we have blackout conditions in every area of the city. we have storm waters rising in low areas. we have had some transformer fires. we fortunately got them under check. when power goes out, you have a lot of desperate situations. people who rely on power for medical conditions, elderly who rely on power as well.

the biggest thing i worry about is what i saw in irene is people not acting with common sense and becoming rescue situations themselves. last year we had people trying to drive through streets and having to be rescued. the biggest injuries we see come in the aftermath of storms, the power lines are down. we have folks spread out throughout the city. we're working well in coordination with federal, state and local authorities. we had a great conference call with the president. the governor was on it. there's a lot of teamwork going on. we have learned a lot. >> the mayor cory booker, as this proceeds, if there's things you need to get the word out nationally, you stay in touch with us. and stay safe. thank you. >> great, thank you, rachel. >> we are awaiting a news

conference from mayor michael bloomberg. we'll be right back.

i want to thank all the federal teand local teams in place. i'm confident that we're ready. but i think the public needs to

prepare for the fact this is going to take a long time for us to clean up. the good news is we will clean up and we will get through this. >> what about the impact on the election, sir? >> i'm not worried that the point about the impact on the election. i'm worried about the impact on families and i'm worried about the impact on our first responders. i'm worried about the impact on our economy and on transportation. the election will take care of itself next week. right now, our number one priority is to to make sure that we are saving lives that are search and rescue teams will be in place and people will get the food, the water shs the shelter they need in case of emergency and we respond as quickly as possible to get the economy back on track. >> the election will take care of itself. that was president obama addressing reporters earlier today at the white house. this is one of the things you can't really predict in terms of the effect on a presidential campaign.

this massive storm, a storm of more than regional, basically national significance. it's hit the pause button on a presidential campaign. it's hard to know how it's going to play out exactly. mostly because we don't know what the overall impact of the storm itself is going to be. the defacto suspension of the campaign itself today and the handling of this crisis by president obama and to a lesser extent mitt romney made themselves be things that affect the election. but the campaign ceasing today does end the candidates most direct efforts to nudge the polls any further in one direction or another. for the record, here's what the latest polling stands now as the campaign stops. in term os of the national tracking polls, rasmussen has romney ahead by two points. politico has president obama ahead by one point. abc news and "washington post" say it's mitt romney ahead by one point.

gallup has called off polls for the storm. here's how it looks in the swing states. in the swing state of ohio, a new local newspaper poll shows the race dead even. a new left-leaning poll outleft hampshire has president obama up in new hampshire by two points. a local university point by north carolina has it as a tie. a brand new cnn poll shows florida, mitt romney is ahead by one point. in colorado, an independent polling called arg shows mitt romney up there as well. that's the state of the race. couldn't be tighter. if there isn't much more campaigning to be done over the next few days that's where the states will essentially stand. and this campaign was put on a forced indefinite hiatus as both sides were starting to make their closing arguments. on the democratic side here's what's going to end up being the closing argument for the obama campaign. this ad is reportedly set to run

in florida, iowa, ohio and virginia. in here, it's just you. no adtion, no debates, just you. so think about this -- mitt romney's plan rolls back regulations on the banks that crashed our economy. medicare, voucher. catastrophic cuts to education, millionaires who get one of the largest tax cuts ever, while middle-class families pay more. that's what mitt romney wants to bring more. remember that when you go here -- >> i'm barack obama and i approved this message. >> no more ads and no more debates. it's up to you. on the republican side, here's the closing argument being made by mitt romney in the crucial swing state of ohio -- who will do more for the auto industry, not barack obama. fact checkers confirm hills attacks on mitt romney are false. the truth?

mitt romney has a plan to help the auto industry. he's supported by lee aiko can and gm. he sold chrysler to italians who are going to build jeeps in china. mitt romney will fight for every american job. i'm mitt romney and i approved this message. >> mitt romney did actually say he'd let detroit go bankrupt and he opposed the bailout and said if we did it it you could kiss the automotive industry good-bye and that didn't really work out. when they endorsed him, they said in spite of him screwing up so badly. the point where they say barack obama sold gm to italians who are going to build jooirps in china. this appears to be a spin on this ad from ohio last week. >> i saw a store today, one of the great manufacturers in this state, jeep. now owned by the italians, thinking of moving all

production to china. i will fight for every good job in america and i'm going to fight to make sure trade is fair and if it's fair america will win. >> that line about jeep moving american jobs to china? moving all production to china? that is not true. chrysler is not moving its production to china. that is not at all true. that is not true. that is a lie. chrysler itself had to come out publicly and say, what mitt romney just said, that is not true. and the romney campaign's response to their candidate going out there and saying something blatantly false was not to apologize for it. not to claire ni oh clarify what he said. making ohio voters think jeep is moving its ohio manufacturing jobs to china when the company itself says absolutely no plans to do that. they're expanding here, not moving their jobs to china. it's not happening. that's the closing argument being made by the romney campaign. this thing we're saying isn't at

all true but makes for a great ad so why not? and that, frankly, closes what's been a remarkable loop. the last ad based on the fact that jeep is moving its production to china, a claim that's totally blatantly not true. you remember what their first ad was? the first ad, remember it? i am confident that we can steer ourselves out of this crisis. who's been in charge of the economy? we need a rescue plan for the middle class. provide relief for homeowners. it will take a new direction. if we keep talking about the economy we're going to lose. >> that's the first mitt romney anti-obama ad said this year. quoting the president as saying if we keep talking about the economy we're going to lose. here's what president obama

actually said. >> senator's mccame's campaign actually said and i quote, if we keep talking about the economy, we're going to lose. >> he was quoting somebody else, to criticize the quote. the romney campaign intentionally took president obama totally out of context. totally out of context so that was a complete lie and the response when they got called out on it was not to cut a new version or pull it down their response was to say they meant to do that and mr. romney personally defended that ad and it's still on their website. with seven days before the election not be a surprise that the closing argument is an ad that even the usually-unoffendable beltway press is calling a flat-out lie. it's not clear at this point how much campaigning is left before election day given the storm bettering the east coast right now. both candidates have officially cancelled all events for tomorrow. if this is it, essentially the end of the election, h romney

campaign is giving voters everywhere a clear view of what exactly they have been willing to do this whole campaign in order to try to win this election. truth be damned.

>> as hurricane sandy bears through this is the governors. >> the late estimates show roughly a quarter million customers without power, river

to river, 34th street on south and, in fact, there's a few parts of very lower manhattan that still have power. con-ed expects many outages to last at least throughout the morning and possibly longer. they have to pump out some stations and fix their equipment. the one thing that we had not counted on, new york university's hospital backup power, in spite of them being ensuring us it's been tested, stopped working and we're working with them to help move people out. we are seeing a large number of fires caused by downed wires on electrical problems relating to outages. if you see a wire on the ground, please, don't touch it. just stay away. two serious problems that however, that new yorkers can help us leave update and i'm asking new yorkers do their part and help us get through this. right now the 911 system is receiving something like 10,000 calls per half hour. typical volume is only 1,000

calls per half an hour. much of this is being driven by nonemergency calls like people calling to report downed trees. or to report nonemergency flooding. please, please, do not call 911 if it is not a life-threatening emergency. you are putting other people's lives at risk by occupying the lines. if you have a nonemergency call call 311 or better yet, text 311 at 311692 or go to 311 online via nyc.gov. we're seeing a lot of cars stuck on the roads and many are blocking emergency vehicles from getting to people in need. we need to keep the roads clear. do not drive. let me repeat, do not drive. we've sent a message to all taxi and delivery drivers to get off